Former US President Jimmy Carter Dies: Relieves Korea's Nuclear Crisis To Question Trump's Legitimization

Jimmy Carter. (Wikimedia Commons/US National Archives)

JAKARTA - Former President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jimmy Carter died at his 100-year-old home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said.

Active in the humanitarian sector, Carter is a peanut farmer in Georgia who became president as the US struggles with a bad economy, a crisis that took Iran hostage, to succeed in becoming a mediator of the Israeli crisis with Iran.

"My father is a hero, not only to me but also to everyone who believes in peace, human rights and unconditional love," said Chip Carter, Jimmy Carter's son.

"Brother, sister, and I share him with the whole world through this shared belief. The world is our family because of the way he brings people together, and we thank you for respecting his memories by continuing to live this shared belief," he continued.

James Earl Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, one of four children from a farmer and shop owner.

He graduated from the US Navy Academy in 1946, served in the nuclear submarine program, and left to manage the family's peanut farming business.

He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946. They have three sons and a daughter.

Carter became a millionaire, a member of the Georgia State legislature, and the Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. Unseeded, Carter even defeated his competitors in the Democratic Party for a presidential nomination in 1976.

He served as 39th president of the United States from January 1977 to January 1981, after defeating the incumbent Gerald Ford of the Republican Party in the general election in 1976.

His one-term presidential term was marked by the peak of the 1978 Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt, which brought stability to the Middle East.

The Middle East is the focus of foreign policy for the Carter Administration. The 1979 Egyptian-Israel peace agreement, which was based on the 1978 Camp David agreement, ended the war between the two neighboring countries.

Carter took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David resting place in Maryland to hold talks. Then, when the deal was threatened with failure, Carter saved things by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem to conduct personal inter-pickpoking diplomacy.

The agreement regulates the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978, respectively.

However, his tenure was plagued by an economic recession (dual-digit inflation, interest rates that exceeded 20 percent and soaring gas prices), persistent popularity, to the crisis of taking Iran, which spent the last 444 days of his term.

In the next period, he lost badly to his rival Ronald Reagent, a former California actor and governor from the Republican Party.

However, Carter's reputation is better than when he was still president, a status he recognized.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his "untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflict, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

Carter's performance footprint is in Eritrea, Bosnia to Haiti. Not only that, his Carter Center in Atlanta sent a delegation of international election monitoring monitoring to polling stations around the world.

Despite experiencing difficulties while in office, Carter does not have many rivals in terms of achievements as a former president. He gained global recognition as a tireless human rights defender, votes for those who lost their rights, and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, thus gaining the respect he never got at the White House.

Carter left his post very unpopular but worked passionately for decades for humanitarian purposes.

Another chapter of his political journey was protests against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 by boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He also asked the US Senate to postpone the consideration of the major nuclear weapons agreement with Moscow.

In its era, Panama's Canal control status shifted from the United States to Panama after obtaining the Senate's thin approval in 1978, despite the continued criticism that it was important for Uncle Sam's country's security.

Next, he also managed to complete negotiations on the United States' full relationship with China.

Carter also traveled to North Korea in 1994 to defuse the nuclear crisis, with President Kim Il Sung agreeing to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for dialogue resumed with the United States. This resulted in an agreement in which North Korea, in exchange for assistance, pledged not to revive its nuclear reactor or reprocess the former factory's fuel.

However, Carter angered Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration by announcing an agreement with North Korean leaders without first consulting with Washington.

In 2010, Carter won the release of an American who was sentenced to eight years of forced labor for illegally entering North Korea.

In 2019, Carter questioned Republican Donald Trump's legitimacy as president, saying "he was sworn in because Russia interfered in his name." Trump responded by calling Carter a "bad president."

In recent years, Carter has experienced several health problems including a melanoma that spreads to her heart and brain. Carter decided to receive hospital treatment in February 2023 instead of undergoing additional medical intervention.

His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on November 19, 2023, at the age of 96.

Carter also wrote more than two dozen books, ranging from the president's memoirs to children's books and poetry, as well as works on religious beliefs and diplomacy. His book "Faith: A Journey for All," was published in 2018.